You can certainly train for explosive strength. That's what most good S+C coaches should be teaching in the weight room. But it does really come down to genetics. All the training in the world isn't going to turn the average, un-athletic schlub into an Olympic sprinter.

Freshman

This is just a few examples from that article but people commonly talk about high school 40 times. A lot of players can improve their times greatly while adding weight from what they were in highschool. Look at greedy, jackson and redwine numbers

Section 102

It depends on what you call "teaching". Can you improve an already fast players explosiveness and technique? Yes. Can you teach someone who isn't fast to be fast? No. Forget 40 times because coaching proper track technique can make a huge difference. Look at playing speed. If you have a slow corner who's getting beat consistently, all the training in the world isn't going to make him fast. That's why they say "you can't teach speed".

You can train 7 days a week for a year and you will still get smoked by an out of shape sprinter who hasn't trained. If you're not gifted with the genetics to be fast, you will not be fast no matter how much you train. If you're a competitive runner, you're already a naturally gifted athlete and training can help make you just a little bit faster. Is the fastest man in the world the fastest because he trains more than anyone else? Or is it a combination of his training and his natural given ability?

Freshman

Junior

Its common sense, alot of players get faster simply because their legs have gotten stronger, and under this new S&C coach, our team as a whole will start to play even faster, especially by year 2 once the majority of the team gets use to the new schemes, and the weight training regime starts to kick in even more!

5 Key Ideas from Dr. Andy Galpin’s Presentation on “Genetics vs. Performance” Written by Calvin Sun We recently had the pleasure of hosting Dr. Andy Galpin, professor of kinesiology and researcher at Cal State Fullerton, at our downtown Invictus location for his presentation titled “Genetics vs...

For many years, there was a lot of debate over whether our fiber type composition was determined mostly by our genetics or our training. Most people have a fairly even split of slow-twitch and fast-twitch fibers and it was thought that this ratio was a fixed trait like your height. However, Dr. Galpin’s team examined a pair of monozygotic identical twins who had vastly different training habits. One who had been training for marathons for 35 years while the other was a sedentary truck driver. They found that the endurance trained twin had 90% slow-twitch fibers and 10% fast-twitch fibers while the untrained twin had 50% slow-twitch, 30% fast-twitch, and 20% ultra-fast twitch. Dr. Galpin cited other studies on identical twins that all found that training had a dramatic effect on fiber type composition despite genetics. To answer the titular question of “genetics versus training”, Dr. Galpin asserted that training was far more important than genetics

Legendary Super Saiyan

It depends on what you call "teaching". Can you improve an already fast players explosiveness and technique? Yes. Can you teach someone who isn't fast to be fast? No. Forget 40 times because coaching proper track technique can make a huge difference. Look at playing speed. If you have a slow corner who's getting beat consistently, all the training in the world isn't going to make him fast. That's why they say "you can't teach speed".

You can train 7 days a week for a year and you will still get smoked by an out of shape sprinter who hasn't trained. If you're not gifted with the genetics to be fast, you will not be fast no matter how much you train. If you're a competitive runner, you're already a naturally gifted athlete and training can help make you just a little bit faster. Is the fastest man in the world the fastest because he trains more than anyone else? Or is it a combination of his training and his natural given ability?

Junior

5 Key Ideas from Dr. Andy Galpin’s Presentation on “Genetics vs. Performance” Written by Calvin Sun We recently had the pleasure of hosting Dr. Andy Galpin, professor of kinesiology and researcher at Cal State Fullerton, at our downtown Invictus location for his presentation titled “Genetics vs...

For many years, there was a lot of debate over whether our fiber type composition was determined mostly by our genetics or our training. Most people have a fairly even split of slow-twitch and fast-twitch fibers and it was thought that this ratio was a fixed trait like your height. However, Dr. Galpin’s team examined a pair of monozygotic identical twins who had vastly different training habits. One who had been training for marathons for 35 years while the other was a sedentary truck driver. They found that the endurance trained twin had 90% slow-twitch fibers and 10% fast-twitch fibers while the untrained twin had 50% slow-twitch, 30% fast-twitch, and 20% ultra-fast twitch. Dr. Galpin cited other studies on identical twins that all found that training had a dramatic effect on fiber type composition despite genetics. To answer the titular question of “genetics versus training”, Dr. Galpin asserted that training was far more important than genetics

Skill position guys don’t have to train w/track for the summer but they should be incorporating speed/explosiveness concepts year round throughout their S&C program ( and even with their position coaches). It’s about learning how to move and training in a way that gets a central nervous system response.

But the idea that an athlete learns a few “techniques” and becomes magically faster is patently wrong.